American Negro Exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition

PH345: Winter 2025

Phil Boonstra

1900 Paris Exposition

World’s fair held April-November 1900

“Countries from around the world were invited by France to showcase their achievements and cultures”

American Negro Exhibit

Thomas J. Calloway and Booker T. Washington petitioned US government to include exhibit dedicated to social and economic progress of Black Americans

Invited former classmate W.E.B DuBois to create social study of African American life

W.E.B DuBois

Black American sociologist, historian, novelist, and poet

Helped reorient field of sociology to be based on empiric data and charts

First African American to receive PhD from Harvard University

DuBois and students from Atlanta University created two sets of infographics and data visualizations

  1. The Georgia Negro: A Social Study (36 plates)
  2. A Series of Statistical Charts Illustrating the Condition of the Descendents of Former African Slaves Now Resident in the United States of America (37 plates)

Mix of traditional and unique bar plots, line plots, and pie charts with intentional use of color

Three refutations

  1. The Black race was not going extinct (contrast with social Darwinism)

  2. Highlighted Black American progress in spite of slavery, Jim Crow, and white supremacy (contrast with imperalist ethos of Exposition: lifting lower races out of barbarism)

  3. Black Americans (and all those of African descent) had their own history, civilization, and culture, both within and separate from white America

Plate 21

Plate 25

To do:

(wrap into )

References

Battle-Baptiste, W. and Rusert, B. eds., 2018. WEB Du Bois’s data portraits: Visualizing black America. Chronicle Books.

Du Bois, W.E.B., 1900. African American photographs assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition. Library of Congress, Washington, DC online